Occlusion culling technique for point cloud visualization

Abstract

A method for visualizing a point cloud on a display, wherein the visualizing includes changing an observation point onto the point cloud and efficient handling of changes in points of the point cloud that are differently obscured for different observation points. The method comprises occlusion culling testing using a depth buffer for sampling a first depth from a previous observation point associated with a previous frame towards the tested point to determine whether the tested point was visible or occluded when viewed from the previous observation point. If the tested point is determined to be occluded when viewed from the previous observation point, a heuristic testing is carried out as part of the occlusion culling testing to determine if the change in observation point since the previous frame is likely to have revealed the previously covered point to be visible from the new observation point.